Hey!
The studio moved, and so did this thing.
gettin' fancy.
http://thebastillestudio.wordpress.com/

Bellflur record!

Mostly done! Too much to write! Shoulda done it in installments but as I had no assistant and days were long I was too tired! Basic rundowns, even though the drums changed every song! Oh yea I'm moving to Inner Ear! Bastille gone legit!

DRUMS
kick in - e602, 1272
kick out - d12, 1272
snare top - ksm141, 2108 mc77
snare bottom - md44,1 2108
rack tom - md421, sytek
floor tom - atm25, sytek
front of kit - cm7, DRS
high overheads - sm69fet, v276
low overheads - km84, 2108, vari-mu
mono overhead - reslo or bova, v76
rooms - phillips, sytek, 2500
center crunch - m130, 1566

BASS GUITAR
RE20, LA610 on Mesa
MD421, V76, Sta-Level, EQP1 on Ampeg

PIANO
KM84 spaced pair on top, Copperphone on top, 414B-ULS on back (sounds like shit)

EL. GUITARS
Carlos clean guitars: Silverface Champ, m88tg - Altec 1566
Patrick guitars: everything in the studio at some point or another. Mainly M88, SM57, Crowley and Tripp, Reslo, U87 on AC30 and Silverface Champ

AC. GUITARS
J45 - CM7, v76, EQP1
LG3 - R92, Biz, MC77 & SM57, 2108

RHODES
414, U87, Bluebird (surprise winner) - V76, EQP1

COCKTAIL KIT
U87 overhead, 635 type omni side, speaker mic under.
on GSFP: 635 type side, Phillips omni w/ 1968 crushing on second floor (working in side loft hallway)

VOX
Carl: CM7 - 76 - MC77 OR combination of VIP50/v276/MC77 + Copperfone/2108/API2500
Tom: RE20 - DRS - 1968
May: Reslo - 76 - MC77 - StaLevel
Emily+Susan: MD1a - 76
Group: Phillips omnis L/R
Andy: MD1a - DRS - StaLevel

STRINGS (done as section)
violins: KM84 XY 76
cello: cm7 drs
section front: Reslo

SYNTHS
primarily direct through V71 and 2108

CUICA
contact mic, all sortsa shit

OTHER STUFF
I FORGET
ITS BEEN A WHILE

Gun Show at Thunder City

is what I think The Danvilles should call their next record.

2/3rds of said band swung by the studio to drop off some tunes today - they are of course the fine gentlemen responsible for the gigantic lovely framed Storming of the Bastille hanging in my room now. We ran most of the tracks for three new songs today in a remarkably efficient manner.

Dex was on my Gretsch kit with the Jazz Fest snare. Had an E602 just inside the hole on the kick, running into the 2108. Top o' the snare was an I5 aimed down the side of the shell, also into the 2108 and MC77 at slow attack, fast release, 4:1, 3-5 db reduction on hardest hits. Snare bottom was the SM7 aimed almost mirroring the I5 into the 1566a. Overheads were KSM141s in x/y into V276/API 2500. They sounded good when I was drumming on them but were a little splashy and harsh with Dex, who hits way harder than I do. In this little room the cymbals get nasty fast, so threw Massey Tapehead over their channels to eat up some highs. Front of the kit was the CM7 into M76/Sta-Level. On the roughs I'm enjoying distorting that channel with the new PT8 Sansamp plugin. For a slower track I threw up the Bova as well, into the M76, crushed with the TG1 in PT. Sounds pretty awesome. Love that mic!

Guitars, I spent the evening yesterday working out placements on the various speakers of my Super Reverb since it's what we'd be using today and I've been unhappy with my guitar sounds lately. Today was a step up. Main tracks were the M88TG into Phoenix DRS. M88s sound great and are good for live tracking since they're pretty tight with their pickup pattern - we were playing loud in this little room and bleed is almost nonexistent. Overdubs we did with the Reslo ribbon at first but pulled it as we thought it broke... turns out it was just picking up the first sounds of the reverb tank in my Super dying. Shit! Another broken amplifier... we ended up doing a few overdubs of dirtier stuff with my Tele into the Barge BP1, mic'd up with a Beyer M201 into the Altec pre. Other guitar parts were the two ES's into the Diamond compressor and Maxon 808 - worked well.

Vocals were the CM7gt - DRS - MC77. Backings were done with the CM7 in wide cardioid or with the M201. Nothing fancy. We got some neat sounds though and I think this'll be a fun one to mix, but it's fun to be tracking again.

"Inamorati" release

Emily and Susan, the "e" and "s" of elms, have tacked the track onto their blog as a holiday download.

http://mousybabe.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/happy-new-year-2009/

Update!

Mainly been mixing the past many weeks and have gotten to work on some really good projects. Things got a little sidetracked by a medical situation which now appears to be under control (despite the worst wishes of one obsessive, mentally deranged individual) but hoping to this week wrap up mixes with the.blackout.district. It's been a highly educational set of sessions as their vision for the songs is often really different from mine so working to find a ground we both can stand happily on has led to working out some nifty new tricks.

Finished two EPS prior to this, one with the super secret band that I'm still not certain I can reveal the identities of (heh) and a group called The Dustys, which I co-mixed with Nick. This group is absurdly good. They've got these great ways of layering really lovely vocal melodies and almost-over-the-top '70s psych-metal guitars that sound exactly the way electric rock'n'roll should sound. The recording was done over a stretch of time both at their homes and at Inner Ear with Nick, who's recorded guitar sounds are always so good as to make me feel rather insecure. I'm really glad to have been able to get involved, and will definitely be giving copies of this EP out for holiday gifts. It's really really good stuff. Death By Sexy has been in a few days as well mixing a full-length Nick tracked which is obviously full of great sounding guitars. I hope we get to make a blooper reel of this one. Those guys have a knack for mid-song banter, and Dex put a flanger across the drum bus at one point. I salute him for his verve, as well as his floor tom skill.

Have one more day of tracking with e.l.m.s. - a project starring Emily and Susan of Exit Clov, Laura Burhenn of her own well-deserved repute and that of Georgie James, and May Tabol, who once was in a band called Le Loup and now has a band called Pree (also w/ some lovely guitar atmosphere courtesy of one Mr David Barker) who are so good that if they aren't the darlings of everyone who loves music by this time next year I may lose all faith in humanity. It's a holiday song! It feels like great 60s/70s folky stuff; I've been sort of using "The Only Living Boy in New York" as a sonic model for it (and in fact was so happy after our last tracking day that, after a few glasses of wine, I had to record my own somewhat silly take on the Simon & Garfunkle tune.) Emily and Susan are always really wonderful on violin and vocals, and it was no exception here. We've been tracking generally a few sources at once to get some bleed - with violins it's been the TM2 on one and the Reslo ribbon on the other - one a rich, dark tone, the other more reedy and sorta haunting. Vocals have pretty unfailingly been with the MD1a+76+MC77. And wow, the vocals! Each of the four were awesome. Like two takes, no splicing, just straight up excellence. I was so dumbfounded by how great it sounded and how freaking easy it was I could barely talk straight.

And woah. As the total opposite... had a guy in the other day who'd gone to Memphis to record at Al Green's old place. Done to 2" and flown into PT, he needed some quick reference mixes done. Just a fast, couple hour service. Right? Holy shit. Like 144-bus ProTools sessions, multiple playlists, menus I didn't know existed, routing configurations that went everywhere but the simple way. I would love to see what this place looked like inside what with all the crazy routing done on those sessions that now had their actual hardware endpoints removed. Luckily the guy was super nice, and the band he'd had playing with him were seriously professional. I'm dying for a Wurli 200 as a result. It definitely reminded me it's time to dig a little deeper into what PTHD can do, but as well that sometimes just pretending it's a tape deck living in the computer feels really nice.

Anyways. We've got sessions booked at Inner Ear in Jan/Feb for more Blackout tracks and the completion of the Bellflur record, and perhaps some new stuff with the super secret mystery band as well. It's nice to be busy.

Inner Ear Blackout

First time running sessions at Inner Ear, and without any permanent damage! 4 piece group - drums, guitars, synths/keys, laptop, bass. Drums and bass went to tape (as did other tracks, but it was elected that they be redone) and flown into PT for overdubs.

Basics - kick was a 24" unported. Lots of boom, not a ton of attack. Mic'd with a 60s and Blue Mouse - good sound but there will definitely be some notching around the kick, bass guitar, and synthbass to get it all sitting right and bring out some attack in that drum. Both ran into 2108, with a Distressor on the 602 at 4:1, slow attack. Snares had a Beyer 201 on top, 441 on bottom, both into V276 and an MC77 on the top, 4:1, slow attack, very fast release. Toms - 421 rack, ATM25 floor, both into Sytek. Bova over the shoulder into DRS, with a Manley Vari-Mu in limit mode doing moderately heavy compression on a couple tunes. MD1a in front of the kit on a few songs into Altec 1566a, crushed in the Vari-Mu (limit mode.) Overheads were stereo (woah) - Altec 201s low and spaced far more as cymbal spread mics that regular overheads as the drummer had a lot of cymbals up and actually played them tastefully and precisely - I know, right?! These ran into the V76s. High stereo OH was an SM69 into 1272.

Bass guitar was done direct at the time for lack of a bass amp that sounded good enough to use. Avalon U5 - Sta Level, sometimes also an ADL-1000 after the Sta to help keep things smooth. We'll be reamping for the final tones.

Electric guitars were all over the map. One guitarist primarily relied on a Tele w/ neck HB and an old cool Danelectro amp. Generally an M88 into 1566, UA610, or 1272 sounded right. Few songs we swapped things up - brought out an AC30, which we mic'd with an SM7, the M88, a Fathead ribbon, a 414... song to song changed. Always those same preamps aside from the 414/v276 chain used on one song. Other guitarist went through the AC30 and a couple small old Fenders. The Fenders got mic'd with the Crowley and Tripp ribbon most often, M88 here and there. Same preamps. Put in the ADL1000 for some cleaner parts that needed smoothing. A few times we used an old Philips omni on the AC30, which I really loved.

Synths/Keys... they had absurd stuff. Kept tracking it simple. Moog direct into 2108 or the board, same with the Korgs, and Nord Electro via Tab Funkenwerk v71. Vocals we ended up dual-micing - GT MD1a and a Cascade ribbon, both through the 76s. Sounds nice! Farfisa went with my usual organ mic - the Beyer 201. Just sounds cool.

acoustic guitar, KM84, 2108, Vari-Mu. Wow.

Day 2

Switched up to the 26" kick for three songs. Snares were the Jazzfest abd the blue Singerland, always side mic'd, and with a bottom mic on the Slinger. KSM141s moved up to OH position, and (gasp) came out of omni for a song. Same kick mics, but out front this time unless the ATM25 was under the snare. MD1a came down to the floor to get slapback. More later.